Wales v Georgia: Autumn Nations Cup Round 2.

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Wales play a Georgia team they dispatched with ease 12 months ago yet the situation is very different.7 losses in a row. JD2 injured. Defence coached sacked.

Wales' biggest weakness appears to be up front in the pack and given Georgia will fight and wrestle all day long, this could be Georgia's best chance to beat an established tier 1 team like Wales in a long, long time.

Botham and McNicholl called up. Hard to argue with the latter on the basis of talent. The former seems to be more of a steady, workmanlike option than the talent Wales so clearly need in the team, particularly in the 10 and 12 shirts.

Georgia really must fancy their chances against this Welsh team. I can see it being one for the purists as a nervous, ill disciplined, and ragged Welsh team is likely to struggle up against a big, bruising pack with a solid set piece. This might be a game that is played around the halfway line and goes from set piece to set piece, mistake to mistake. Neither team seems to have much in the way of a cutting edge and both have no hope of progressing to the final rounds of this 'tournament'.

It should stop the losing streak for Pivac, but the fact that it might not has to be playing on the coaches' minds. Lose, and that has to be curtains for Pivac and co. No pressure...



Wales:

Liam Williams; Johnny McNicholl, Nick Tompkins, Johnny Williams, Louis Rees-Zammit; Callum Sheedy, Kieran Hardy; Wyn Jones, Elliot Dee, Samson Lee, Jake Ball, Seb Davies, James Botham, Justin Tipuric (capt), Aaron Wainwright.

Replacements: Sam Parry, Nicky Smith, Leon Brown, Cory Hill, James Davies, Rhys Webb, Ioan Lloyd, Jonah Holmes.

Georgia have definitely picked it up this half, usually they run out of gas around the 60 min mark

What’s the point, when it opens up, in just shipping it straight to the wing and allowing all of the opposition defence to drift across and snuff out the attack? Surely we need to draw the defenders and create overlaps?

BigGee wrote:Georgia have definitely picked it up this half, usually they run out of gas around the 60 min mark

The tempo perhaps not high enough to tire them out?

Botham should’ve pinned his scrumcap back then. I highly doubt the ten really wanted to tackle him, if he hadn’t have hesitated.

Wales lineout has fallen to bits

Wales have been pretty blunt.
Considering the possession they’ve had, they should be out of sight.

Worst tackle attempt I’ve ever seen from Tompkins there!

Khmaladze gave Tompkins a little tickle

This game smacks of the old ‘4th game’ or ‘lesser game’ of the AIs, where Wales traditionally play a weaker team, ring the changes and then struggle. Japan, Georgia fairly recently, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji....... all spring to mind where we laboured to close wins and even draws in those matches. Bleak.

Some fine amateur rugby on display.

But, having said all of that there’s a lot of new guys getting debuts, etc. Not much experience especially in the backs. So perhaps to be expected. But you see other rugby nations doing this and they never seem to struggle as much.

I probably wouldn’t have picked Wainwright as MOTM, but it was picked by a fellow 7.

So frustrating. That said, we have improved on the 13-6 from the last game (I think) . So every cloud.

mikey_dragon wrote:I probably wouldn’t have picked Wainwright as MOTM, but it was picked by a fellow 7.

One of the Dragons players deserved it though. Definitely.

That was turgid. The front row played well and Ball was decent. In the backs, Johnny Williams carried hard and should start at 12 next week. And LRZ flashed that easy speed and elusiveness a couple of times. But bar that, pretty grim.

That was absolutely awful. Georgia played badly too. The best thing that could be said is that nobody paid to watch it. Good old S4C. Having said that I’ve got Prime so i’m losing out indirectly. Hmm.

Surprised by the possession and territory stats. Just over half to Wales for both. Felt like we had it all!

B!oody awful.... Pivac has to go.

England are going to humiliate us next week.

RiscaGame wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:I probably wouldn’t have picked Wainwright as MOTM, but it was picked by a fellow 7.

One of the Dragons players deserved it though. Definitely.

Maybe Dee, clearly better than Elias . Jones and Lee did well and didn’t really do anything wrong. The new boys went alright too but overall, it was just an awful game against minnows Georgia.

RiscaGame wrote:So frustrating. That said, we have improved on the 13-6 from the last game (I think) . So every cloud.

It was definitely better than that game. Wales pretty much controlled the entire 80 minutes. Not great, but a step forward?

I would have given MOTM to gorgadze the Georgian 8 bloody good player and would be seriously impressive if in a decent side. Thought Johnny Williams was better than the others you've had at 12 for a while. Another savvy steal. I'm sure you guys wil pick up with England coming to town. A wins a win and you've always got a good chance when playing at home. England haven't been that good at converting chances into points and if they keep kicking it to you then you'll have plenty of ball to do something with.

Always good to end a losing streak.

That will do for a start.

Yoda wrote:I would have given MOTM to gorgadze the Georgian 8 bloody good player and would be seriously impressive if in a decent side. Thought Johnny Williams was better than the others you've had at 12 for a while. Another savvy steal. I'm sure you guys wil pick up with England coming to town. A wins a win and you've always got a good chance when playing at home. England haven't been that good at converting chances into points and if they keep kicking it to you then you'll have plenty of ball to do something with.

I thought JW was good as well. I would imagine he will be Wales 12 going forward.

I guess one way of looking at it is that England only beat them 40-0, and England are bloody good!

LondonTiger wrote:

RiscaGame wrote:So frustrating. That said, we have improved on the 13-6 from the last game (I think) . So every cloud.

It was definitely better than that game. Wales pretty much controlled the entire 80 minutes. Not great, but a step forward?

It is really, given it was a much changed side again and much poorer conditions. I would’ve loved to have seen us have a bit more confidence, but it’s hard to get out of a rut when you’re worried about making mistakes as we are doing from forcing play and trying to play quicker than we have.

Did not see the game.was there any injuries to wales? any of the welsh players truly stand out?

I guess they are all busy celebrating the win

Yeah I wouldn’t mind seeing the front row, Sheedy, Johnny Williams and LRZ keep their places. If Pivac thinks he can win by reverting to the old guard then he’s lost the plot.

For those of you who manages to watch the game. Who would you like too see keep their place against England?

Was it Botham in the red scrum cap (having got quiet time for the Tigers/England game I had to mix family time with rugby in the background for the Wales game)? Thought he had a good game.

Midfield looked ok for Wales there just wasn't the intensity in the forwards to allow them to build phases. I don't think Wales really used LRZ that we'll either, England ensure May's pace is utilised particularly in the kick chase a fair bit, forces the opposition to defend the backfield meaning less players in the defensive line.

Its hard to read much into the Wales performance with shoddy weather (get a roof?) and the sort of 23 you'd expect to see playing during the Lions summer.

Giving the big names a week out of the spotlight and a chance to avoid getting beaten up by "enthusiastic" play probably not a bad thing .Tipuric aside, but the way the Welsh fans were talking they wont miss him a lot currently.

Only losing one of their own set pieces and bossing Georgias scrum should be a big boost in confidence, they cant afford a night like last weekends against England.

Georgia I guess can at least feel that turning up saved them 15 points difference. Its hard to play when you don't have the ball, but they really aren't very good at keeping it when they do get it.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Was it Botham in the red scrum cap (having got quiet time for the Tigers/England game I had to mix family time with rugby in the background for the Wales game)? Thought he had a good game.

Midfield looked ok for Wales there just wasn't the intensity in the forwards to allow them to build phases. I don't think Wales really used LRZ that we'll either, England ensure May's pace is utilised particularly in the kick chase a fair bit, forces the opposition to defend the backfield meaning less players in the defensive line.

That was Botham. Wales benefit from putting youngsters in, they’re both fearless and hungry. I might put Botham at 7 and Wainwright at 8 should Navidi be unavailable. I would also try Cory Hill at 6. Locks will be AWJ, Ball and Rowlands, hopefully we’ve seen the last of Seb. I don’t expect Pivac will do much or any of this, and he’ll revert to type with the team that’s past it.

The Oracle wrote:What’s the point, when it opens up, in just shipping it straight to the wing and allowing all of the opposition defence to drift across and snuff out the attack?  Surely we need to draw the defenders and create overlaps?

The one thing I thought was a given was that our handling would be better under Stephen Jones than under Howley. Having said that, basic stuff like drawing the man almost shouldn't need coaching, the players should know instinctively to do it. It shouldn't matter that these were new combinations. Jiffy was doing his nut about it on S4C. "Rhifau!"

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:

The Oracle wrote:What’s the point, when it opens up, in just shipping it straight to the wing and allowing all of the opposition defence to drift across and snuff out the attack?  Surely we need to draw the defenders and create overlaps?

The one thing I thought was a given was that our handling would be better under Stephen Jones than under Howley. Having said that, basic stuff like drawing the man almost shouldn't need coaching, the players should know instinctively to do it. It shouldn't matter that these were new combinations. Jiffy was doing his nut about it on S4C. "Rhifau!"

Haha! Didn’t watch s4c, had it on Amazon. But can imagine Jiffy

I just remember a few times in the 2nd half. We had turnover ball just inside our own half, quick turnover too so the opposition were not set and it was broken field. And there did seem like there was urgency to exploit it. But we just do big floaty passes out towards the wing with no defenders in sight of our player with the ball and then it got to the wing and they had like 5 defenders able to drift over and snuff out the attack! It’s like the reverse or inverse of creating an overlap!!! We created a defensive overlap for them! It just needed someone to take the ball to the line before passing and/or straighten up and fix the defender. I sound like jiffy now! Not sure what the thinking was. Almost like none of the backs backed themselves for pace and they just wanted to ship it to the fastest guy to run in. But you’ve got to draw the defender first.

They should know all this, it's basic stuff, and these are professionals. But Wellies is going to have to drill it into them. Again, I just assumed this would be one of the things the 'new Wales' would be good at. Maybe I should be optimistic and think that we're definitely going to capitalise on every overlap against England now....

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:They should know all this, it's basic stuff, and these are professionals. But Wellies is going to have to drill it into them. Again, I just assumed this would be one of the things the 'new Wales' would be good at. Maybe I should be optimistic and think that we're definitely going to capitalise on every overlap against England now....

From what I saw against Georgia, although wasn't fantastic, is that it showed the way forward regarding personnel over the rest of this competition and into the 6N.

Front row, we must pick our best scrummagers to start, Wyn Jones and Samson Lee have always excelled in the set piece. Elliott Dee appeared far more solid in the lineout than we saw with Elias, in some pretty tricky conditions.

Jake Ball is one of the 1st names on the team sheet, we really missed him in the first two matches.

Aaron Wainwright offers flexibility around the back row and although he wouldn't get into my 1st choice trio, we've always been a bit light on number 8s.

Hardy showed enough to suggest he's got potential to be a test player, however he's a fair way down the pecking order.

Sheedy clearly offers more of a gain line threat, in the same way Jarrod Evans does, and can be a different option to the solid and unspectacular Biggar.

Johnny Williams was everything we need from a centre at the moment. Willing to get through a tonne of work, low error count that other players can play off. Much the same as Parkes was.

LRZ has shown up positively again, the break in the second half shows the benefit of a winger in a really confident mood.